Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R)
In a press conference Thursday morning, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted gave the results of a request he made to all 88 Ohio counties to investigate allegations of voter fraud and suppression at the polls during the 2012 Presidential election. 625 voting irregularities were found and of those 115 were referred to prosecutors and a vast majority of those weren’t prosecuted further. While he said there was not one single case of suppression, he admitted that requiring Photo-IDs didn’t prevent the irregularities.
“I don’t know that (requiring) a photo ID wouldn’t have mattered in any of these cases, but a photo ID wouldn’t have mattered in most of these cases,” Husted said, referring to a Republican-backed bill in 2011 he helped kill that would have required voters to present a photo identification at polling locations. Republican lawmakers said the bill was needed to prevent voter fraud.
Husted was also vague on the details of what the voting irregularities were specifically. Hopefully details as to the numbers and what specifically these irregularities were will be available later but Husted’s office did make a spreadsheet available.
625 voting irregularities and only 135 referred for prosecution out of 5,632,423 votes cast is statistically insignificant and contrary to Republican claims voter fraud isn’t a problem. Husted agrees with that as well:
“This report demonstrates that voter fraud does exist; but it is not an epidemic,” Secretary Husted said. “More importantly, our effort to look into irregularities and root out voter fraud sends a strong message that no amount of fraud is acceptable. If you cheat, you will be caught and held accountable.”
Secretary of State Husted Releases Post-2012 General Election Voter Fraud Report
And these voting irregularities weren’t prevented by showing Photo-ID’s at the polls.
More suspect is his claim there was not one single case of voter suppression even though he didn’t say what he meant by suppression and the 88 counties weren’t given a definition. Again this might be cleared up if details of the voting irregularities are made public.
